The Red Lion girls basketball team stole the spotlight at the Solanco Holiday Tournament. The Lions downed the host Mules 45-34 in the championship game Saturday night, December 28 to give their coach Don Dimoff his 500th career victory. "Good, solid program," Solanco coach Chad McDowell said of Red Lion. "Well-coached as you can see. Five hundred wins is quite an accomplishment. They do the fundamentals well. They play hard. They do all the things they need to do to win games. There's a reason they only have one loss and we competed with them. I was very proud of our effort to compete with a team of that caliber. I'm very happy. I told them [in the locker room], it's a positive. Even though we didn't come out ahead on the scoreboard, it's a positive for us moving forward when we get back to section play."
Solanco led 7-3 early following two baskets by Ilynd Rapant. The first quarter ended in a 7-7 tie before both teams caught fire from the outside. The Mules' Arianna Seiberlich hit a three-pointer to start the second quarter and Red Lion's next three buckets came on three-pointers – two by Madi Shellenberger and the other by Chloe Tollinger. Trailing 27-24 at halftime, the Mules' Jade Eshelman scored the first bucket of the third quarter before Red Lion reeled off eight straight to extend its lead to 35-26. "We rushed a little bit too much," said McDowell. "Probably too many turnovers. We can't rush when we have opportunities to get up the court. We knew the press was going to be a concern for us but once we broke the press, we needed to slow things down and run our offense. Sometimes we didn't do that and we had turnovers at inopportune times." Solanco got as close as six on two separate occasions early in the fourth quarter but Red Lion went 8 for 9 from the free throw line to put it away. Dombach collected 13 points and three steals. Eshelman recorded 10 points and eight rebounds. The Mules will get a boost once starting guard Paige Phiilips returns from a concussion. McDowell hopes that happens in time for Solanco's next game on Friday night, January 3. "We're getting some good looks but shots aren't falling," McDowell said. "That will come. It's going to be a key once we get Paige back..I'm proud of the effort everyone was putting out there. They're looking to score when they can. Jade and Jenna did a good job [in the tournament]. Defense with Alana (Yoder) and Nikki [in the opening game]. I'm not worried. We knew going in we were going to struggle to score this year. We had to replace a lot of scoring. We're still chipping away. We're still working offenses to get good looks. Eventually the shots will fall. The law of averages is eventually going to catch up with you and the shots will start to fall." Solanco 43, Conestoga Valley 31 The Mules prevailed in a tournament first round game Friday night. The game featured a coaching matchup between friends and former colleagues McDowell and CV coach Bill Moore. Moore is a former Solanco boys basketball coach and McDowell was the JV coach and varsity assistant under Moore for eight seasons. "This was a fun game to coach, coaching against one of my mentors and good friends on the opposite bench," McDowell said. "I learned a lot from Bill. He has been a coach who has helped me develop as a coach. He is one I still call and talk basketball with all the time. We are constantly bouncing ideas off one another and looking to help each other. I have a great respect for him. We both have a lot of the same philosophies and run a lot of the same things, which made this an interesting chess match. He would call something and we would know exactly what they were running and vice versa which made this a fun game." Eshelman had 14 points, four rebounds, and three steals. Dombach delivered 14 points, four rebounds, three assists, and three steals. Nikki Trout totaled six points, seven rebounds, three assists, and four steals. Alana Yoder contributed four points, five rebounds, and four steals. Solanco’s JV team went 2-0 in the tournament. The Mules topped Red Lion 31-29 in overtime Saturday. Piper Graham had nine and Lasko added eight. Friday, Solanco routed Conestoga Valley 41-19. Graham notched nine points and Carly Rose recorded eight. Comments are closed.
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